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this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
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By that logic it's never okay. Some of th best changes in history grew from overthrowing government.
Generally speaking what follows a violent revolution is usually a few decades of war, poverty and tyranny.
It's quite unlikely that you'll be better off in the 2-3 following decades than when you started. After that, it's anyone's guess. You might be better off or worse off, depending on the ability of the new government
By that logic all of America should still be partitioned between the Spanish, British, Portuguese and French.
I understand this is an hyperbole, but still, let's take for example the French revolution: sure Napoleon crowned himself emperor and in the end left France in a worst state than before, but he gave the whole world some important advancements that in many (often subtle) ways still reverberate today:
for example, his monetary policies are the reason we have 1,2,5,10,20,50 of a given currency and the respective cents, and not an arbitrary system of fractions (old European coinage could get absurd, I suggest who's interested to go on numista.com or a similar site and check for yourself) .
He helped introducing the concept of separation of church and state to the general public (not much considerated before).
He helped the nascent industrialist class to emerge and impose itself, gradually stamping out the remains of feudalism from Europe.
He advanced history in many ways I can't even start to mention.
Let's take another example, you can think what you want of the Soviet Union and I can agree to various criticisms, but living in the Russian empire in the 1900s (even before WW1) was like living 3 centuries in the past. People lived in misery and died young, servitude was abolished only 50 years before.
The Communists took a country that barely surpassed feudalism (in the cities) and gave basic dignities to its citizens, arriving to compete, militarily and economically, with the strongest superpower in history.
Can be argued it degenerated after Lenin's death, but it's undeniable that, even under stalin's time, life was magnitudinally better than even 30 years prior (and to be fair that's an enormously low bar)
Essù, anche noi abbiamo fatto ben 3 (tre) guerre per ľindipendenza contro ľaustria, evidentemente la gente lo voleva! Concordo che non sempre quando rovesci il governo vai a finire meglio (vedi Hitler, giovani turchi) ma gli Italiani lombardi/veneti/friulani sotto cecco Beppe non se la passano proprio bene... Non che i SaBoia fossero meglio, ma ľautodeterminazione dei popoli è una cosa importante per cui (a mio avviso) vale la pena combattere se si è oppressi.
I didn't say that all revolutions are bad. It's usually a mixed bag, some good, some bad.
What I was saying is that violent revolutions and civil wars, like all wars, usually bring death, destruction and poverty for the normal everyday people. So if you are expecting better living conditions right after a revolution, you are either so poor that anything is better or you better be on the short list of elites that will get to grab power and rebuild the country, otherwise you are going to suffer. Maybe your kids will be better off... Maybe.
And yes, there are also independence wars, but those are different from civil wars. The US is independent, Americans don't consider themselves being occupied by a foreign entity.
There are cases in which the status quo kills way more in the long term than a revolution would in the short term, I agree with you that a war, expecially a civil war fought expecially on national soil brings misery and destruction to the nation, but it is sometimes a necessary evil in the short term in order to avoid a way bigger evil in the long run. To make another Italian example, the fascist regime killed hundreds of thousands of people, 120.000 innocents died only in Lybia during the deportation of the cyrenaican people, that's less than all of the deaths in the Italian Civil War!
I think we agree on this one, I thought you meant revolution was inherently evil. Better to clarify and argument further nevertheless, For posterity. Peace.
I would say a peaceful change by vote of the people (not politicians) would be a better way than violent revolution. Violent revolution can be justified, but it will end up hurting many people and destabilizing a country. War from internal and external parties would be garunteed. Peaceful revolution is not an easy nor even plausable outcome, but it would harm far fewer people.
Im curious: How does not voting show you wish for revolution? My view is that I'd rather vote for someone who is working within the system (corrupt and broken though it may be) than someone who wants to tear it down and install a dictatorship. Not voting just means you're complicit and signals you don't prefer one over the other. I don't like either, but i definitely have a preference.
Tough question I don't have an answer for. Both established parties are corrupt beyond measure, pandering to the same group behind closed doors.